


Don't You Know

by TheMidnightOwl



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batjokes, Brooding, Comfort, Cuddling, Emotional Comfort, Eye Sex, Fluff, M/M, Snuggling, pretty much, so much snuggling guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 05:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10892352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMidnightOwl/pseuds/TheMidnightOwl
Summary: Every time Bruce feels like this is exactly where it was always leading, it changes again.  And the more it does, the more it feels like he’s nailed his own coffin.  He can’t turn back.  By sticking this out, he’s choosing whatever this might become.  And he has no idea what that is.





	Don't You Know

“Opposites attract.”  That is the saying.  That is how it exists in nature.  Like forces repel, different forces combine.  Positive and negative.  North pole and south pole.  Proton and electron.  The universe runs, in part, on diametric opposites joining together in order to function.  The phrase “opposites attract,” however, does not fit this law of nature, as the phrase is a description of human interaction.  And, surely, it is incorrect.  It must be.  It must be because if it’s not, Bruce is in trouble.

He never believed in the idea of opposites attracting better than like-minded individuals.  His parents - his picture-perfect glowing examples of human perfection, forever on a pedestal and never to be touched - were not opposites.  They were a perfect couple.  They never fought, at least not in front of him.  They were always on the same page.  They both wanted to help the city and they built their relationship together.  Bruce was a product of their love.  Diametrically opposed people cannot have a relationship like his parents’.  He doubted he would see anyone with the same relationship as his parents, himself included.  No; the path he chose in life was too dark for him to ever achieve what they did.  But he accepted this.  The least he could do was continue to fight in their honor, to try and heal Gotham.  He could do that.  He swore to do that.

His oath to Gotham was set-in-stone.  His understanding of good vs evil, right vs wrong, just vs unjust, hero vs villain, were rigid; his mind, clear of bias and focused on the long-term and short-term goals.  He was a symbol, an idea, not a man.  And then…

Their eyes met as Joker was shoved into the back of an armored police truck.  Bruce saw it in his eyes: the longing, the affection, the lust.  He averted his gaze without turning his head.  He didn’t care that he was the first to look away.  

That alpha male bullshit - and, to a degree, his being an idea - had no place in their dynamic anymore.  Joker didn’t see Batman as a symbol or an idea, he saw him as a man, a man on a separate plane of existence with him.  After so many years chasing, fighting, hating, talking, _hating,_ Bruce didn’t feel like a symbol around him.  When he was with Joker, he was a man fighting a monster.  The problem didn’t start there.  The problem started when he stopped thinking of Joker as a monster, and instead saw him as a man, too.  Two men, made enemies by a single opinion: if life is valuable or isn’t it.  Two men that hated each other so much that they’d become so intimately knowledgeable of one another.  Their encounters found a rhythm; a dance, as Joker calls it.  It’s the way they are.  Bruce had given up on trying to fully understand it.  He got comfortable.  But the only problem is, well…

When you’re two men in a relationship that heated, that passionate, it tends to lead somewhere eventually.  And it did.  And now Bruce is in trouble.    
Oddly enough, the trouble doesn’t come so much from being with the Joker in the grand scheme of things; more or less, Bruce could find ways around the ethics and morals of their relationship if he cared to.  No, the trouble came from the relationship changing once again.  

It started out as hate sex.  Really, _really_ good hate sex in alleys and abandoned buildings and one time in the lower decks of someone’s yacht.  He was as ashamed of that and of how much it amused hm.  The trespassing was wrong and the sex was sinful but just the idea of it as a story made Bruce giggle.  What a strange life they lived.  When he started to refer to them as a single unit, he didn’t know, but it didn’t feel entirely inaccurate.  Somewhere along the way, they went from two opposing forces, to two men trying to kill one another, to two men trying to kill one another while then having sex in between fist fights, to two men sneaking in to boats to go at it like a couple of teenagers on a dare. 

That was where the danger lurked.  Not in the morality of the situation - of which, there was none, but Bruce has still managed to justify - but of the way it keeps unfolding.  Every time he feels like this is exactly where it was always leading, it changes again.  And the more it does, the more it feels like he’s nailed his own coffin.  He can’t turn back.  By sticking this out, he’s choosing whatever this might become.  And he has no idea what that is.

The alleys and buildings and boats have more or less fizzled out.  After their first night together, Joker admitted that he knew who Batman was, had for a long time, but never cared because he saw Bruce Wayne as the lie and the Bat as the truth.  Honestly, Bruce couldn’t disagree at this point.  So when it moved away from termite-ridden, rickety buildings and into Bruce’s own bed, there was no dramatic reveal or weeks spent awake from the horror of it all.  There was two men who hated each other but also couldn’t stay away from each other, clothes on the floor, air that came alive with sounds of pleasure, and silence.  That was the more jarring difference.  Batman and Joker had always existed in the heart of a city, full of noise and light.  But when they were together, the only sounds to be heard were their own labored breathing and skin against skin.

If there’s only one thing that could scare Bruce more than the idea of “opposites attract” being true was, now, the idea of it _not_ being true, and therefore implying that he and Joker are somehow one in the same.  It’s something Joker has mentioned many times, and Bruce always brushed it off.  But during his crisis after the first night, he went over nearly every encounter with Joker from the day they met looking for an explanation.  Along the way, he remembered that idea coming up quite a few times.  He hadn’t listened then, but he was listening now and begging to any God that might hear him that it wasn’t true.  He needed to have a way out of this.  He didn’t want it to be fate.  He didn’t want the Joker to be his future.  That’s not what his parents had.  His parents would have been mortified had they known this happened.  Hell, _Alfred_ would be mortified if he knew why Bruce was suddenly spending so many nights in his downtown penthouse.

Tonight, however, he was sleeping in his own bed.  He was sleeping in his own bed because he needed his own bed after his failure tonight.  His own bed in the sense that it wasn’t _their_ bed, which the penthouse bedroom was starting to become.  Joker always seemed to know when he was at the penthouse - something Bruce needed to investigate - so he made an effort to return to the mansion tonight, as much as he desperately wanted to just sleep this horrible night off.  He showered in his master bath, not the cave.  He used three towels because he could, and because he wanted the chill of the merciless city off of him.  

He put on underwear and pajama pants and had every intention of going to sleep, but as soon as he emerged from the steam-filled bathroom the events of the night dug their claws into Bruce’s mind.  He thought he’d known all he needed to know before going in.  He was wrong.  He didn’t know about the double-agent in Sionis’ crew.  It was never supposed to happen in the street. It was never supposed to take place anywhere near civilians.  It was never supposed to turn into a shootout between two crime families.  And then a van came around a corner, and someone shot the tires so it would swerve away from their barricade of cars.  It crashed into a building, where the gas tank caught fire and exploded before the passengers escaped.  Knocked unconscious from the collision, most likely.  Bruce didn’t reach them in time.  He helped dig the bodies out after the mobsters eventually ran away.  The small, innocent bodies of four disabled children being transported home by a school van after a field trip that ran late.  From their size they couldn’t have been more than ten years old.  All dead because he had gone in without adequate information.  All dead because of him.

He sat on the bed.  His head fell into his hands, braced by his elbows on his knees.  The night was one horrendous mistake after another, and Bruce fumbling like an idiot trying to save it.  He caught a few of the mobsters, but they weren’t talking yet, and Sionis was still at large.  And those children… He should have braved the bullets faster.  He’d survived gunfire before.  He could have handled them.  Those kids shouldn’t have died.  Now Gordon had to go to the homes of four sets of parents and tell them that their child had died, and that Batman had been there and didn’t save them.

His chest burned with the weight of his grief.  Children dying at the hands of heartless adults fueled by hate and greed always got to him the most.  The only fate worse than a child losing their parents, in his mind, was a parent outliving their child.  

As both an orphan and a parent himself, he knew firsthand that losing a child was harder than losing a parent.  He lost Jason.  He lost Jason to his own arrogance.  He never knew what it was like to have hope that you could see your parent again.  He didn’t listen.  So Jason ran, and Joker found him alone.  And Bruce lost him.  He carried his son’s corpse out of the aftermath of an explosion, bloody and broken from the Joker’s cruelty.  And now, years later, the man that murdered his son had become a bedfellow.  

Bruce let out a shaky sigh.  When had this become his life?

The soft click of a latch unhooking.  Bruce was on his feet in an instant.  How had someone gotten this close to the mansion without one of the alarms setting off?  Didn’t matter.  He had plenty of frustration to take out on anyone who was stupid enough to try and get in through the master bedroom.

The full moon backlit a silhouette that Bruce would know anywhere.  Joker pulled the glass balcony doors open and stepped inside, letting them swing themselves closed behind him.  His smile was predatory, but apart from that he seemed… relaxed.  Which was a strange word to associate with him.  

“Nice digs,” he commented.  “Your stuff just gets better and better.”

Bruce humphed and sat on the bed, his back to his unwelcome guest.  He didn’t care about how Joker had known which window to climb in through when he had never been to the mansion before.  He could care tomorrow.  Tonight he’d had enough.  “I don’t care how you got in.  Go away.  I’m not in the mood tonight.”

Joker’s smile fell and he raised an eyebrow.  _“Don’t care how I got in?_ Bats, did you hang upside down somewhere for too long?”  His grin returned a little.  “I said I’m not in the mood.”

Joker’s eyes narrowed.  He stepped out of his shoes to approach; he wouldn’t want to ruin Batsy’s nice hardwood floors.  He eyed Bats suspiciously, drinking in every tensed muscle in his neck, his shoulders, his back.  “Did something go wrong tonight?” He asked, trying to keep his tone light without sounding mocking.  The Bat didn’t answer, but tensed again.  So, yes.  “Sionis, I imagine?  I remember you mentioning him.”

As Joker came up beside him, Bruce turned his head away.  He didn’t want to indulge the insufferable man.  He didn’t want the clown analyzing him for information.  He didn’t want to be caught under that scrutinizing gaze that always learned more than it should.  He didn’t want Joker to know how much failing affected him.  “Go.”  He meant for it to be stern and finite, but it came out more dejected than he intended.

He could feel those eyes on him.  God dammit, why did Joker never listen.  He readied his body for a fight.  He was _not_ in the mood for Joker tonight, and if he had to throw the bastard out of here by his hair he would.  He was angry enough to start thinking about it now.  He needed to work on his security, which he could start on right after he tossed the madman off the side of his third-story balcony.  How had he even gotten up here?

Movement in his peripheral vision.  A gloved finger touched his chin and turned it frontward.  Joker was in front of him on one knee.  He had no shoes on, which was weird.  His socks were green and purple in an argyle pattern.  That observation happened in a fragment of a second, because his attention was  drawn instantly to the green eyes boring into his with an intensity that was reserved for Bruce, and Bruce alone.  They weren’t cruel, or mocking, or manipulative, or cunning.  They looked… He didn’t know if _caring_ was the right word to ever use with Joker, but… honest.  Calm.  Like he had looked when he entered the room but without the cheshire grin.  He did not retract his finger from Bruce’s chin, and Bruce didn’t try to shake it off.  He felt hypnotized by the openness Joker was displaying.

“You can’t save everyone,” Joker said, rigid but soft, like you would to comfort a friend.  Bruce couldn’t decide how to interpret how he said it.  He wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t let himself believe that Joker was being gentle and sincere with him because that’s not the kind of person Joker was, or because Bruce only _thought_ that’s not the kind of person Joker was.  It was all very confusing.  And he expected to be overwhelmed by the out-of-character behavior and the unexpected empathy in those jade green eyes, more pupil than iris in the low light - at least that’s what he told himself, because he didn’t want to think about Joker’s pupils dilating that much out of love.  

They stayed like that, Joker’s finger under Bruce’s chin, staring at each other, neither wanting to be the first one to move.  Neither one knowing exactly what to do next.  Something in the back of his mind told him that Joker was manipulating him.  But something else - the much louder of the two - was telling him that this was a side of Joker he’d known all along was in there, just never wanted to admit.  There was something there between them.  Yes, Joker’s eyes were truly hypnotizing him, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing in this context.  They weren’t The Joker and Batman here.  Not the ones the public knew them as.

One of them had to move eventually, but Bruce didn’t want to be the one to do it.  Without entirely wanting to, Bruce let his eyes fall, just to see what Joker would do.  

The finger under his chin was joined by the rest.  Joker cupped Bruce’s chin, wanting the other’s eyes fixed on him again.  Still Bruce remained fixated on the floor.  Slowly, the hand moved upward, caressing Bruce’s cheek before settling lightly placed on the side of his head, fingertips grazing his hair.  He leaned into the touch unconsciously.  Finally, his eyes met Joker’s once again.

He could see Joker’s mind working.  It was stunning how the man’s intelligence reflected so starkly in his eyes.  Bruce always thought he looked the most dangerous when his eyes sparkled with mischief and brilliance.  The two in combination are deadly when it comes to the Joker.  In the beginning he had drastically underestimated - under accredited - Joker’s intelligence and it caused him to lose a lot of battles, a lot of lives.  He made a point never to discredit Joker’s brilliance, and encouraged all others not to make that mistake either.  Some people just couldn’t listen.

Now, though, that intelligence did not look threatening.  Joker was reading him, and that should have made him defensive or paranoid, because when the clown reads you he comes away with more than he lets on until he uses it sometime much later.  If the eyes were the window to the soul then Joker was reading every last vulnerability Bruce had, and in return revealed nothing.  There were no vulnerabilities in Joker’s eyes, only madness.  He wanted to feel as angry as before.  He wanted to tell Joker to leave again, and to stop him from staring so intently, but he felt hypnotized by the gentility in Joker’s gaze.  He had never seen Joker look so… human.

Joker hooked his fingers ever so slightly for a better grip.  Slowly, _slowly,_ he leaned in closer to Bruce.  Bruce had a moment of panic.  He knew exactly what Joker was going to do and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.  They had been getting together for about seven months now, and it always went well but that was because it was always only sexual.  Sex is easy.  Sex isn’t complicated.  Hell, sex isn’t even emotional.  Not always.  Not if you don’t want it to be.  And he didn’t want it to be.  He was shit at emotion.  Emotions are messy and they certainly don’t have a place with the two of them.  They couldn’t have feelings.  They could have lust.  That’s what they had.  They couldn’t kill each other so they fucked each other, isn’t that how Joker put it once?  And now Joker wanted to turn all of that upside down?

Of course he did.

Bruce closed his eyes.  Chapped lips, softened by lipstick, pressed softly into his own.  He hesitated to kiss back, but Joker was patient.  Joker resealed the kiss, and this time Bruce returned it.  Part of him wanted to open his eyes, just to see if Joker had closed his too, but he didn’t know which answer was more frightening, so he kept them shut.  There wasn’t any pressure yet, just small brushes of lips.  Bruce could feel he tension in Joker’s body; he was restraining himself.  The idea of Joker being so tuned in to him, knowing that this was new territory, knowing that Bruce needed it to be slow, deliberately acting against his own desires so he wouldn’t make Bruce uncomfortable, sent a wave of warmth through Bruce’s body, and with it, confidence.

He kissed back intently this time, pulling Joker in by the neck.  If he was going to kiss this man, he was going to do it with every ounce of playboy billionaire he had.  He started with just his lips, then using his teeth to capture Joker’s bottom lip and pulling.  He bit down a little harder than he would otherwise, but Joker always enjoyed pain; he assumed there would be no exception here.  He flicked his tongue out in between passes of lips, teasing until being granted access.  All of his senses were focused on Joker.  His taste, his smell, the feel of his soft skin and hair under his hand.  It felt like an apt description of his entire life.  They’d been the center of one another’s world for a long time now.  Since the start, Joker would say.  Perhaps he was right.

Bruce pulled him up onto his lap, Joker gleefully wrapping his legs around Bruce’s waist and holding Bruce’s head with both hands now.  The buttons on Joker’s waistcoat were cold against his bare chest.  For whatever reason, he liked the idea of it; a single layer of clothing between them that was easily removed.  It may have been more intimate than usual, but Bruce knew exactly where this was headed.  It was where it always headed.  Two men, so passionately in hate with one another, that it could almost be love if it weren’t so violent.

And then his very unhelpful brain sent him pictures of the children he failed to save tonight and every heated blood cell in his body went cold.  Joker was the first to break the kiss, clearly having sensed it.  Bruce sighed.  He didn’t want to see what look Joker might be giving him.  So he ducked his head under Joker’s chin and focused on his own breathing.

In between flashbacks, the thought came to him that he had never heard Joker’s heartbeat.  He could if he turned his head to the side.  He didn’t.

Joker draped his arms around Bruce’s shoulders and rested his chin on Bruce’s head.  He kissed Bruce’s hair.  “Who died tonight?” He asked tenderly.

“Children,” Bruce said without hesitating.  Joker hummed an acknowledgement. 

“What do you need?” Joker asked, knowing very well his Bat had no idea how to express his thoughts.  But he didn’t have to.

Bruce tensed.  He didn’t know what he needed.  He needed to turn back time and do it all differently.  Braved the bullets faster, gotten to the van faster, pulled them all out before the gas tank exploded, anything.  Whatever he should have done, he needed to do that.  But he hadn’t.  And now four more families had to suffer the same loss he had.  Except theirs were random.  Wrong place at the wrong time, with Batman too far away to save them.  He wondered if that made it easier or harder than having your child hunted down and brutally killed.  Again, with Batman too far away to save them.  Save him.

He wrapped his arms around the man that killed his son and pressed his face further into his chest.  So confusing, all of it.  It gave him headaches.  Always battling for inner peace, but battles never lead to peace, only more fighting.  No relationship he could ever have with Joker would be peaceful.  Their dynamic had no room for peace.  Only violence and hatred and death.

Joker slid off of his lap.  Bruce refrained from trying to hold him in place.  He didn’t enjoy the loss of touch.  Joker shrugged off his coat and shed his gloves, waistcoat, and shirt, then his trousers and socks.  It wasn’t rushed or methodical or lusty; he wasn’t putting on a show.  He sat next to Bruce further into the bed, and in one smooth motion pulled Bruce down by his shoulders and leaning back until they were both laying down, Bruce’s head on Joker’s chest.  

Bruce didn’t trust that he was processing this correctly.  It felt far too surreal, far too out of character for the both of them.  This wasn’t them.  Was it?

He only hesitated for the second it took for those thoughts to form, and then he adjusted his position to fit comfortably.  It shouldn’t be possible given Joker’s long, boney frame, but Bruce fit well into his side.  Well, he was half on top of the man.  Joker didn’t seem to mind.  His breathing wasn’t labored, so Bruce’s significantly heavier weight was not bothering him.  He threw one of his arms over and around Joker’s stomach.  Joker’s arm hugged his shoulder in response.  His other hand found its way to Bruce’s hair and stroked in small circles.  _Fuck._ He sighed with pleasure, and felt Joker’s lips in his hair pull into a small smile at the sound.

A gentle rhythm played out under his ear.  _Lub dub.  Lub dub.  Lub dub._ The sound of Joker’s heart, its beat powerful yet soft.  He new, logically, anatomically, that Joker had a heart.  Metaphorically, the answer was no, but Bruce was beginning to reconsider that.  Apart from Selina, he hadn’t listened to any of his partners’ hearts before.  It was always them on his chest.  Which he had never minded, nor thought about.  Now, contrastingly, he didn’t know if he could ever return to it.  He wanted to lay here forever just listening to Joker breathe, to his heart pumping, to how alive he was.  Alive and strong and serene and _human._

“What’s your favorite song?” Joker asked softly.  Bruce felt it as much as he heard it.  The light rumble in Joker’s lungs.  Bruce took a moment to enjoy it before thinking; he really didn’t listen to music that often.

He dug around in his brain, but couldn’t find a favorite above all others.  The question seemed random, but Joker seldom did things without a purpose.  The only thing he could think of was his mother’s favorite song.  The one she and he danced to many times.  “Don’t You Know, Della Reese.”

A soft chuckle resonated in his ear.  A pause, and then Joker started to hum.  He knew the song.  Bruce suddenly remembered the lyrics, and prayed Joker wouldn’t misinterpret.  He pushed that detail aside, let himself focus on the feeling and sound of the song.  He was reminded that when Joker sings, _really_ sings, he actually has a nice voice.  The gravel in his voice ended up translating well into music.  Bruce sighed contently.  

He thought of his mom.  To associate something about her with Joker should be troubling.  Laying down instead of dancing with her.  Ruining her favorite song by listening to it from someone else.  Sharing her memory with a murderer.  It should trouble him.  This song was a more personal memory than he had realized when he shared it.  It should make him uncomfortable to give Joker that insight.  Hell, it should put him on the defensive for revealing such a sensitive subject.

But, it didn’t.  None of it did.

He felt himself falling asleep.  The gentle beat of Joker’s heart and the rise and fall of his chest combined with a song of his childhood were lulling Bruce into a place of safety and comfort.  What a thought to have Joker making him feel safe.  It almost made him chuckle.  He caught it before he could.  He wanted to fight the sleep, make this last a little longer so he’d have more to panic about in the morning, but the night was weighing on his eyelids and the body beneath him was so warm.  

Joker watched and felt for the moment his Bat fell asleep.  The draw and exhale of his breath became more shallow, the remaining tension in his (godly) muscles relaxing.  Still, he continued to stroke his hair and hum the song.  When he was certain his Bat would not wake up, he started to sing.

 

_Don't you know_

_I have fallen in love with you_

_For the rest of my whole life through_

_Don't you know_

_I was yours from the very day_

_That you happened to come my way_

_Can't you see_

_I'm under your spell_

_By the look in my eyes_

_Can't you tell, can't you tell_

_Now, don't you know_

_Every beat of my heart keeps crying out_

_I love you so_

_Don't you know_

_Don't you know_

_Every beat of my heart keeps crying out_

_I love you so_

_Don't you know_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you read my other batjokes fic you probably noticed a similarity and its because I have such a weakness for barely-there kisses that get everything going. And believe it not this fic wasn't based on the song. When I decided I wanted Joker to sing to him I googled "good waltz songs" because I wanted it to be something he and his mom could have danced to together. Which led me to a wedding planner site with samples, which led to the discovery of this song. And weren't the lyrics just so damn fitting? Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. Fluff is definitely where I'm more comfortable. Please leave a comment or some constructive criticism, it really helps me. Thanks so much for reading!


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